Weeding Out of Books

By Diane J. Young -- Library Journal, 11/15/2009 Raise you hand if you can't face weeding. You are not alone. All over the country, books are stacked three high on window sills, Fodor's Yugoslavia 1987 languishes on the shelf, and HVAC systems send out BTUs to heat and cool the broken spines of Harry Potter. This can change. In my 20 years as a reference librarian and public library administrator, I've been deep in collection development work, organizing systematic weeding projects and getting my hands dirty in the stacks, even inventing the Weed-U-Matic to make the work of deselection easier. I've discovered that, whether our expertise is paleontology or board books, most of what holds us back from weeding is psychological. I'm reminded of that first step in most recovery programs: “We admitted we were powerless over [blank]—that our lives had become unmanageable.” So, here's a program for people whose collections have become unmanageable—and it's only eight steps. Admit that you are emotionally attached to your collection.It's hard to discard the picture book you adored as a child, or the atlas donated in memory of Mrs. Jones. But our libraries exist to fill today's needs, not those of ten or 20 years ago. Train yourself to follow seriously objective criteria, such as the last checkout date. Mike Nelson offers this helpful mantra in his book Stop Clutter from Wrecking Your Family: “My belongings are a resource for the present and future, not a clinging to the past.” Recognize that space is finite and overabundance can be a detractor.Some of us have a need to fill every space. We're pack rats. We're afraid we won't have enough. Blame your parents, and move on. Having crowded shelves means that shelving takes longer, and that items are more likely to be out of order. Seek the help of experts to overcome your reluctance to judge.When it comes to some subjects, we feel unqualified to make judgments about whether to keep or jettison. If you've never done panty-hose craft, how do you know whether that book is good or bad? Find people in your community who are experts—hobbyists, faculty, business owners. Make use of tested weeding guidelines like the CREW (Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding) method and SUNLINK's Weed of the Month (www.sunlink.ucf.edu/weed). Acknowledge to yourself and your colleagues that you've made selection mistakes. If you've been a selector for more than a few years, weeding brings you face to face with your own blunders. The upside: recognizing a mistake sharpens your skill at selection. In fact, reviewing your recent purchases regularly is a good habit. Take an honest look at what has circulated twice, once, or not at all. And remember this quote from my sister's therapist: “We did the best we could with the resources we had at the time.” Find ways to ease the anxiety of decision-making. Weeding requires making decision after decision in short order. If you value flexibility and open-endedness, that's painful. So limit your weeding to 15 minutes at a time. Or work with a partner who'll provide a second opinion. Afraid that if you get rid of a book, someone will ask for it tomorrow? The truth is that rarely happens. It is much more likely that you will be asked for a title that you decided not to buy in the first place. Take the drudgery out of weeding.Weeding invariably loses out to the glamorous jobs like meeting an author for lunch, tweeting from a conference, or emptying the book drop. But in a profession where so much of our work is done in front of a computer screen, weeding offers a hands-on, sensory experience. (Unfortunately, that sensory experience might be “sticky” or “smelly.”) Inject even more fun into the job by listening to some dance music. Protect yourself from criticism through policies and PR.“It's the hardest thing in the world to explain to taxpayers why we are throwing away perfectly good books,” wrote Will Manley. In academic settings, faculty can be suspicious of what the staff is doing with “their” books. Educate all staff and trustees about deselection, and involve stakeholders in the process. Save blatant examples of must-weeds, like Hawaii: Our Off-Shore Territory. Channel your love of books into finding good homes for your discards. How can you possibly let go of that matched set of “Harvard Classics,” even though it's gathering dust? S.R. Ranganathan made this wise statement: “Every book its reader.” Work with collectors, the libraries of local prisons and the armed forces, nonprofits that recycle the proceeds into literacy programs, or have your own book sale to connect the book with its reader. Now, get out there! Diane J. Young (djy10@columbia.edu) is a library consultant in Massachusetts. We welcome opinion pieces for BackTalk. Please send them to LJ/BACKTALK, 360 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010; fialkoff@reedbusiness.com